The NDA’s last lap blues

No government has escaped the pangs of worry and crises that set in as it is about to face the next general election, except in those windless years following Independence where the Congress had a dream run. The UPA in 2009 was a recent exception. It embarked on the second-term test with optimism and confidence, encapsulated in the slogan ‘Singh is King’ that was born out of the defiance with which Manmohan Singh handled the nuclear deal challenges on peril of nearly losing his government. Until six months ago, it seemed as though Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s return was a given, because the Congress and the orbiting satellites looked unlikely to coalesce into an Opposition. A cohesive Opposition has still not been forged from the smithy of egos, ambitions and clashing interests, but something has changed in the political ambience.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi sounds more aggressive as he seems intent to banish the Bofors ghost by playing up the Rafale defence deal for which the government and the BJP have no convincing answers. The unrelenting rise in fuel prices, the unmasking of minister MJ Akbar after horrific accounts of his sexual predations on his young colleagues unspooled, intemperate on-record statements from a senior minister, Nitin Gadkari... Surely, Prime Minister Narendra Modi can’t be gungho as 2019 is around the corner.

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Gadkari, the road transport and highways minister, is not a motormouth. His BJP associates said like a quintessential Vidharbhayee, Gadkari has a penchant for using earthy words and phrases, sometimes verging on the risqué, in everyday conversations.

However, the political statements he made were thought through possibly because he figured out that a second term as the BJP president was a tough call with strong competitors encircling him. He was so closely identified with the RSS sarsanghachalak Mohanrao Bhagwat that he could not afford to bring disrepute to the Sangh or the BJP. That’s why when the allegations tumbled out on the eve of his second presidency, that he owned ghost companies, transacting questionable deals, Gadkari opted out.

With the benefit of hindsight, the Purti scam looked like an inside job. Whatever the veracity (or otherwise) of the theories, Gadkari’s exit and Rajnath Singh’s entry facilitated Modi’s declaration as the NDA’s PM candidate.

Gadkari’s long and easy equation with the RSS tied Modi’s hands. He had to induct him in his cabinet. He handed over weighty portfolios but made sure that Gadkari was out of the super elite cabinet committees on appointments and security. Gadkari worked hard on his job. His ratings in straw polls and opinion surveys were consistently high.

Two weeks ago, he spoke sideways against the BJP’s big two, although typically, his statements sounded mirthful. A Marathi channel showed him saying that the BJP was “advised” to belt out “tall promises” before the 2014 elections because it was “very confident” of not coming to power. “Now that we are in power, the public reminds us of those promises made by us. However, these days, we just laugh and move on”, before guffawing himself. A bit like Amit Shah’s clickbait usage of the term jumla before the 2015 Delhi election to explain away the government’s “inaction” in retrieving black money that made Arvind Kejriwal’s work easier. When Rahul played Gadkari’s clip, the minister claimed his remarks were misinterpreted.

Gadkari and Modi never had a straightforward relationship. Gadkari agitated the waters by using Modi’s long-time bugbear Sanjay Joshi as a bait. To recall, Modi and Joshi were RSS pracharaks in Gujarat, positioned on a par although Joshi is younger. Both migrated to the BJP after it formed a government in Gandhinagar in 1995. In their acrimonious power struggle, Joshi won the first round by ensuring Modi was moved out of Gujarat to Delhi. The battle tipped in Modi’s favour when he moved to Gandhinagar as the CM in 2002. Joshi was sent packing from the state never to return. He remained in the BJP until a sleazy CD on him surfaced at a BJP convention in Mumbai in 2005, forcing the leaders to dump him although he held the powerful office of the general secretary (organisation).

In 2011, as the BJP president, Gadkari rehabilitated Joshi and put him in charge of Uttar Pradesh, before the 2012 assembly election. Modi, by then a law unto himself, hit back variously at various times. He skipped a BJP national executive sitting hosted in Delhi in September 2011, citing the Navratra fast he observed as the reason. In May 2012, Modi stayed away from another national executive session in Mumbai, ostensibly to protest Gadkari’s move to induct Joshi as a special invitee to the august body.

This time, Gadkari capitulated, asked Joshi to quit and begged Modi to come. What do Gadkari’s “misunderstood” comments signify in the present context?

First, he believes the BJP will lose a considerable number of seats in 2019, enough to put the cat among the pigeons and himself up the stakes. Second, the RSS could have nudged him to disconcert Modi and Shah. Lastly, beam the message that another slew of pre-poll promises might also end up as jumlas, so don’t treat them seriously.

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